Tag Archives: social media

Who gets to claim the title “activist”, and who quietly does the work that’s needed for activist movements to succeed while getting simultaneously derided and appropriated from?

A collective of, in their own words, “Black Women, AfroIndigenous and women of color” have issued a statement on how they’re being treated by white feminism, academia, the mainstream media, and the rest of the social-justice-industrial complex:

As an online collective of Black, AfroIndigenous, and NDN women, we have created an entire framework with which to understand gender violence and racial hierarchy in a global and U.S. context. In order to do this however, we have had to shake up a few existing narratives, just like K. Michelle and her infamous table rumble on Love & Hip Hop.

The response has been sometimes loving, but in most cases we’ve faced nothing but pushback in the form of trolls, stalking. We’ve, at separate turns, been stopped and detained crossing international borders and questioned about our work, been tailed and targeted by police, had our livelihoods threatened with calls to our job, been threatened with rape on Twitter itself, faced triggering PTSD, and trudged the physical burden of all of this abuse. This has all occurred while we see our work take wings and inform an entire movement. A movement that also refuses to make space for us while frequently joining in the naming of us as “Toxic Twitter.”

Read the statement from @tgirlinterruptd, @chiefelk, @bad_dominicana, @aurabogado, @so_treu, @blackamazon, @thetrudz, as well as #ThisTweetCalledMyBack on Twitter, for a critical perspective on the role of intersecting racism and sexism in how activist work is valued. If you’ve ever been dismissed as “just an Internet activist” or told to get off your computer and out in the streets, then you need to read this essay. If you’ve ever dismissed someone else as all talk, and no action, not like those real activists who are running big street protests, then you need to read this essay. And if both are true for you, then you need to read this essay.

So You’ve Got Yourself a Policy. Now What? | Stephanie Zvan at Freethough Blogs (April 10): “We know from situations in which they’ve failed that “zero-tolerance” policies, policies in which any act that is deemed to be unacceptable results in expulsion and exclusion, don’t work well. They fail in three main ways. People who are against harassment policies in general are quick to point out that they leave no room for honest mistakes. They are correct when talking about zero-tolerance policies, even if they make the same criticism about all policies.”

What’s Missing from Journalists’ Tactic of Snagging Stories from Twitter? Respect. | Tina Vasquez at bitchmedia (March 21): “Christine Fox does not consider herself a social justice advocate. On March 12, Fox’s timeline took a decidedly different turn. That night, to illustrate that there is no correlation between clothing and sexual assault, Fox asked her more than 12,000 followers to share what they were wearing when they were sexually assaulted. It was the first time Fox facilitated a conversation on this scale and it was also the first time she publicly shared her story as an assault survivor. She walked away from her computer that night feeling positive about what took place—and many tweeted to thank her, saying that through the tears, the discussion felt healing. But the next morning, Fox felt her hands go shaky. She felt nauseous and sweaty. She’d later learn from followers on Twitter that after reading through hundreds of tweets about assault, she had likely “triggered” herself, a term she was relatively unfamiliar with. Still, she knew something powerful had happened and she was proud to have sparked it. And then BuzzFeed came along and fucked everything up.”

Why are People Perennially Surprised By Internet Misogyny? | s.e. smith at meloukhia.net (April 14): “I have a confession: I was tempted to cut and paste this piece, since I’m pretty sure I’ve written it before. I realized that my desire to cut and paste was kind of an indicator of how endlessly circular this topic is, though. […] I really don’t know how many times people need to say this before the message will sink through: the internet is a dangerous place for women. It’s especially dangerous for women living at the intersections of multiple marginalisations.”

Collecting Inspiration with Supersisters | Liz Zanis at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (April 3): “Published in 1979, the Supersisters trading cards were a playful, informative, and accessible way to spread feminism to younger audiences. The series was inspired by Lois Rich’s daughter, an eight-year-old baseball-card collector, who asked why there weren’t any pictures of girls on the cards. With a grant from the New York State Education Department, Lois Rich and her sister, Barbara Egerman, contacted five hundred women of achievement and created cards of the first seventy-two to respond.”

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Google+ What’s Hot Serves Based On Gender: “I get that WH algorithms are based on what people click, like, share, comment on, etc. Fine. But I challenge anyone to give me one good reason why there should be such a drastic difference in less than ten seconds by simply changing my gender, other than institutionalized sexism about what girls and guys apparently like.”

Mapping the Geology of Skyrim: “What I now aim to do is open this project up a bit to other geologists out there who I know are interested in mapping Skyrim. I would like to call on your expertise to come up with hypotheses about the geological evolution of Skyrim.”

The Business Case Against Booth Babes: “But the booth babe approach overlooks the essential connections brands need to make with their customers–for many brands, a group that is mostly and increasingly women–and the subsequent need to develop a culture that includes women as part of the conversation.”

Dear Learn to Code Startup, an open letter from a computer science teacher. “[I]f you really want kids to learn to code […], then don’t make yet another tool or start yet another class that’s separate from your nearby school.” What follows is some good practical advice on how to help way more children learn to code.

You can suggest links for future linkspams in comments here, or by using the “geekfeminism” tag on delicious or pinboard.in or the “#geekfeminism” tag on Twitter. Please note that we tend to stick to publishing recent links (from the last month or so).

As Mary stated in response to my last post, flouncing on Facebook isn’t necessarily an ideal option for some of us as much as we may wish to.

If you choose to stay with Facebook (and it is entirely your choice), there are various things you can do to mitigate the effect of the privacy erosion. One of these things is locking down your profile. We all have different tolerances and needs, so do what you need to do to make yourself comfortable.

I’m throwing out this excellent guide for those who are confuzzled on the whole locking down process. It shows you in a series of screenshots a good number of the steps you can take.

Note, however, that due to the very nature of these posts, the abovementioned guide may cease to be accurate at some arbitrary point in time determined only by Zuckerberg’s whim. It is also worth checking regularly that your choices have not been overridden.

If you have comprehensive howto links that might add to this, explain it in a different way that others may understand better, or cater to a different social networking service altogether, please add them in the comments.

Note: Please take care not to be too ‘splainy here; howtos of your own should be posted to your own blog and linked instead. Any blamey comments (if it starts out akin to “well, I just don’t…” or “what do you expect…”, you’re being blamey) will be bitbucketed. With prejudice.

Or, more to the point, Facebook’s privacy instability is a feminist issue.

[Trigger Warning: Discussion of loss of privacy and its impact on survivors of violence.]

Social media is a gamble. Unless you’re using a service such asÂ statusnet which allows you to run and federate your own server, social media involves the placement of information about yourself, your activity and possibly your location, on someone else’s server. And for organisations like the Library of Congress to archive forever.

Facebook is probably the most cryptic and misunderstood as far as privacy goes.Â The chances of any given Facebook user of any demographic actually knowing what they are now signed up for? Anyone’s guess, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good odds. Even the geekiest of us get confused.

No longer do you make a choice about your own information; you now sign away information about your friends to your other friends. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has chronicled the (really quite scary)Â changes over the past 5 years.

When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friendsâ€™ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs,Â connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. … The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to â€œeveryone.â€ … Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.

Matt Mckeon has drawn up another great visualization of the changes to Facebook’s privacy practices over the years as well.

Facebook isÂ one of the most accessed websites on earth, and theÂ demographics put women as the majority consumers. How can the privacy issues affectÂ oppressed groups in our society that live in intimate association with their oppressors?

In a society where publishing any detail of her sexual activity online can have a woman declared to be “asking for it”, or where geo-ip can let an attacker find you, social media — especially facebook — becomes a feminist issue.

Feminism vs geek culture?: liliacsigil notes that Anna N is talking about commercially produced geek media, and that geek culture is not monolithic and has many women and feminists, and returns to the issue of “strong women characters” in geek media.

Study: Pay, Promotion Limits Lead Women to Exit Engineering: ‘What’s for sure is that “it’s not about math or getting your hands dirty,” says Hunt. “It’s not because these women mistakenly wandered into engineering.'”. (Also, WTF at ad inserted into the article: “See iPhone apps for new moms.”)

Being Inclusive vs Not Being Exclusive: ‘A group of people put on some creative project, and someone notices that thereâ€™s a lack of representation of X Minority for whatever reason, sometimes noting that they themselves are in the minority. The people organising the project get defensive and say â€œBut weâ€™re not excluding anyone! We are open to everybody! They just need to sign on!â€ There is a huge difference between not being exclusive and being inclusive.’ (Via FWD.)

Research Conversations: Munmun De Choudhury writes about her computer science research on homophily in social networks, that is, similar people forming connections.

In Australia the Victorian Department of Transport is offering $10 000 Women in Transport Scholarships to female, full-time or part-time students starting or completing postgraduate studies in transport-related fields.

If you have links of interest, please share them in comments here, or if youâ€™re a delicious user, tag them â€œgeekfeminismâ€ to bring them to our attention. Please note that we tend to stick to publishing recent links (from the last month or so).

Few gender differences in math abilities, worldwide study finds: “Girls around the world are not worse at math than boys, even though boys are more confident in their math abilities, and girls from countries where gender equity is more prevalent are more likely to perform better on mathematics assessment tests, according to a new analysis of international research.”

Diversity at what cost?: Lucy questions the push for diversity in FLOSS for its own sake and whether women are being pushed into it against their own interests.

In the name of awareness: Only related to Mackenzie’s New Year’s resolution in the sense that they’re both about women’s clothing, but interesting also. The “what colour is your bra?” breast cancer awareness meme on Facebook others… women who have had mastectomies!

If you have links of interest, please share them in comments here, or if youâ€™re a delicious user, tag them â€œgeekfeminismâ€ to bring them to our attention. Please note that we tend to stick to publishing recent links (from the last month or so).

How the Geek Stereotype Stunts Computer Science: Lisa Grossman, writer of "Of Geeks and Girls", responds to some Hacker News comments: “The entrance fee to a computer science career is membership in geek culture, and thatâ€™s way too restrictive. If any other field had a cultural barrier to entry like that, no one would stand for it.”

Dear Marvel Comics: Rusalka appreciates Marvel Comics’ efforts to spotlight female superheroes in comics. But why are they spotlighted as “girls” or “ladies” rather than “women”?

Management changes at Canonical: Jane Silber, current COO of Canonical Ltd, will take over from Mark Shuttleworth as CEO in March 2010. (Canonical is a company owned by Shuttleworth and is the sponsor of Ubuntu development among other ventures.) There’s been much discussion around the Linuxosphere (Linux.com, Slashdot, LWN), but most of it around Shuttleworth’s decision.

If you have links of interest, please share them in comments here, or if youâ€™re a delicious user, tag them â€œgeekfeminismâ€ to bring them to our attention. Please note that we tend to stick to publishing recent links (from the last month or so).